Geek 101: How to open a CSV with Google Docs

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In case you didn’t know it Google Docs can open up a CSV file. This is something that I just learned yesterday, and it’s one of the more useful functions I’ve found for Google’s online document editor. The process is surprisingly simple, and after making a few simple changes you’ll never have to think twice about viewing and editing a CSV.

First off, a CSV (comma-separated values) is a very simple, very useful file type. It works with plain text, with no special encoding, and holds data separated by commas (or some other delimiter, like semicolons). A CSV might as well be a text file, which means you can open it in Notepad or TextEdit or Gedit, or whatever app you use for editing text, it just won’t be human parseable.

The simplicity of the .csv, and the fact that it’s basically a text document formatted like a spreadsheet, means that Google Docs shouldn’t have any problem opening it. But if you’re reading this then you might have noticed that, depending on your settings, Docs can take issue with the format. The good news is that fixing this just takes a few clicks.

From within Google Drive…

Click the upload button (to the right of “Create”), and choose “Files”

Pick the .csv file from your computer

If you go straight to the upload box, then click “Settings” and make sure “Convert uploaded files to Google Docs format” is checked. Next to Settings it should say “Conversion: on”

Upload your CSV and watch it be converted into a spreadsheet!

If you’ve already tinkered with your settings rather than going to the upload dialog, you might see this:

This is the “Upload settings” tool. It simply asks you if you’d like to convert uploaded files (like CSVs) to GDocs formatting and if you’d like PDFs to be converted to text and adjoining image files. If you agree to the latter you’ll be able to choose the language as well. If you don’t want to see this tool you can just uncheck “Confirm settings…” under the Settings menu. As you probably guessed, you’ll want the first box to stay checked.

To answer the question that brought you here, yes, Google Docs can open, convert, and edit a CSV file. It’s surprisingly easy, and 99% of the time (that’s an approximation) allowing Google to covert your files will not cause any issues. Best of all, after making these simple changes you’ll never have to think about it again.